Council releases first community satisfaction survey

Inner West Council’s first community satisfaction survey shows 85% of residents are at least ‘somewhat satisfied’ with Council performance.

Seventy per cent reported they are ‘somewhat satisfied’ to ‘satisfied’ with Council’s integrity and decision making, and 71% of residents rated the availability and accessibility of council services as ‘good’ to ‘excellent’.

The first survey is an opportunity to establish benchmarks for the new Inner West Council’s services and engagement with the community.

As well, the findings were used to inform the Statement of Vision and Priorities, which was adopted at last night’s Council meeting.

The survey will also be invaluable in the development of the Community Strategic Plan, according to the Administrator of Inner West Council Richard Pearson.

“Local Government community satisfaction surveys are not only used to find out what our ratepayers think of their local council, but also the issues that most concern them,” he said.

“While they overwhelmingly said the inner west is a “good place to live” (96%), they also said they were very worried about housing affordability.

“Other issues that resonate with our residents are over development – for example The Bays Precinct, Parramatta Road, and Sydenham to Bankstown – and WestConnex.

“We are already doing our very best to address these issues. At last night’s meeting alone we adopted a draft Affordable Housing Policy which sets a city-leading 15% affordable housing target on large developments, and 30% on government owned land in regeneration areas such as The Bays Precinct,” Mr Pearson said.

“Last night Council also vowed to fund traffic modelling studies to identify and mitigate the impacts that WestConnex will have on inner west streets - in particular the effect of ‘rat runs’ created by motorists who avoid paying WestConnex tolls.

“And Council also approved a draft submission to the State Government that strongly objects to their plans to rezone a light industrial area in Leichhardt to High Density Residential,” Mr Pearson said.

“This is our first satisfaction survey and I’m happy that general satisfaction is good. However our community has made it clear that the quality and level of engagement is incredibly important to them and we will be making this an absolute priority for improvement,” Mr Pearson said